Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[SignalHillHiker]

He's cringe-worthy but a lot of young people do that whiny talk. She sounds fine though, not all that unusual.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I dunno. These things are often both subtle and variable.

He didn't say much that would lead me to believe that he couldn't be Canadian.

Really? Listen to the "out" in "it's just so nice out." That is totally, completely American. It's not Canadian in the slightest.

At 0:22 he says "goin' out fishin tomorrow" in a way that no Canadian does ever. The "out" and "tomorrow" are pure American. Canadians never say it like that.

Maybe in putting on the "Millennial" voice he's playing up the accent? I'd be really curious to hear him speak in his normal voice.

[SignalHillHiker]

I find he says "going" and "tomorrow" in a way that's not remarkable. It's not the stereotypical Canadian accent with the endlessly long first "o", nor does it sound as annoying as that, but it's not a southern drawl either.

I like the way he says it - probably helps that I can see him. Generic, sufficiently quick pronunciation with a nice "o" sound. It's better than the kids here, who have turned it into the one-syllable "mar".

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Really? Listen to the "out" in "it's just so nice out." That is totally, completely American. It's not Canadian in the slightest.

At 0:22 he says "goin' out fishin tomorrow" in a way that no Canadian does ever. The "out" and "tomorrow" are pure American. Canadians never say it like that.

Maybe in putting on the "Millennial" voice he's playing up the accent? I'd be really curious to hear him speak in his normal voice.

I think he's just putting on a show, rousseau. Same thing with the interrogative raising at the end of his sentences. Unless under the sad looking beard he's actually a 14 year old girl.

[vid]

He sounds like average white kids up here. They're always "goin' fishin'".

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by vid

He sounds like average white kids up here. They're always "goin' fishin'".

But are they "goin' ahwt fishin'" would, I think, be rousseau's question.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by vid

He sounds like average white kids up here. They're always "goin' fishin'".

This is too easy. From the Miss Thunder Bay pageant (2012, if anyone's keeping count):

• Video Link

The contestant at 5:50 says the western Canadian clipped A in "family" instead of the American/southern Ontario more nasal, longer A. She also says "without" using the standard Canadian Raising to make it sound more like "withoat" than the very American drawled "awt" that whiny guy in my video says it with.

Unless accents have changed drastically in Thunder Bay in the last twenty years, there is simply no way you can produce a video of normal kids talking in Thunder Bay that sound like whiny guy in that St. Thomas video.

At this point I'm fairly convinced that whiny guy is putting it on for the prank, because even the manager he talks to doesn't do the drawling that he does.

[Acajack]

Accents are morphing all over the world in all language families. We are generally sounding more and more the same.

Accents that are truly "out there" (at least in terms of unintelligibility) will become rarer and rarer for people who are from the same language family.

[lio45]

I have been paying close attention to how my gf says 'out' and I think she's actually somewhere in between 'oot' and 'awht' though closer to the latter. I am assuming that's what kw calls the proper Anglo Canadian 'out'. It's true that it does not sound exactly the same way as my own 'out'. (Which sounds like 'awht'.)

In that bearded guy video, the lady on the phone, how is she supposed to sound like? To me they both sound like normal Anglo North Americans. Non-British, Non-Aussie, Non-US-Southerner, but that's it. Both of them sound the same to me. If you do say the lady on the phone sounds Ontarian and the guy sounds American, I'll listen again to try to spot differences.

There's a little something in the sound of the guy's voice that sounds slightly douchebaggy and idiotic to me, but it's not the accent, it's the voice.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Accents are morphing all over the world in all language families. We are generally sounding more and more the same.

Accents that are truly "out there" (at least in terms of unintelligibility) will become rarer and rarer for people who are from the same language family.

With the media it's pretty normal. A few generations ago everything you heard was in the accent of your neck of the woods... not anywhere near the case anymore.

My cousins in Nice are sounding much more like Parisians than their grandfathers did. I think my grandpa who's now retired in the Eastern Townships still has more of a Provençal accent right now than them in spite of having lived here for exactly 60 years this summer...

I expect Ontario kids to tend to speak English more and more like the people on TV and the internet do. I am sure this slow phenomenon has been going on for a few decades already.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by lio45

In that bearded guy video, the lady on the phone, how is she supposed to sound like? To me they both sound like normal Anglo North Americans. Non-British, Non-Aussie, Non-US-Southerner, but that's it. Both of them sound the same to me. If you do say the lady on the phone sounds Ontarian and the guy sounds American, I'll listen again to try to spot differences.

He's drawling a bit, she's not. But she could be either southwestern Ontario or Ohio, there's not a huge difference. Which is why at first I thought they were both American.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by rousseau

He's drawling a bit, she's not. But she could be either southwestern Ontario or Ohio, there's not a huge difference. Which is why at first I thought they were both American.

Again, he's performing. The stoner/slacker way he's speaking is an act. He in no way sounds like the average resident of St Thomas, ON.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Again, he's performing. The stoner/slacker way he's speaking is an act. He in no way sounds like the average resident of St Thomas, ON.

Yeah, that's my impression. I think he was really driving home the layabout slacker persona with that drawl.

For what it's worth I thought that video was very funny!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by rousseau

He's drawling a bit, she's not. But she could be either southwestern Ontario or Ohio, there's not a huge difference. Which is why at first I thought they were both American.

So you'd immediately know that lady on the phone couldn't be from the GTA born and bred just based on her accent? (Or from the Prairies, or BC?)

There's no right/wrong answer, I'm just curious.

In my mom's childhood rural Gaspé, every single village has its own accent which everyone in the area would instantly recognize.....

[lio45]

Originally Posted by esquire

Yeah, that's my impression. I think he was really driving home the layabout slacker persona with that drawl.

For what it's worth I thought that video was very funny!

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Again, he's performing. The stoner/slacker way he's speaking is an act. He in no way sounds like the average resident of St Thomas, ON.

So to your ears it's a Southern Ontario accent with which the guy makes sure he sounds like a slacker-stoner?

I mean, sure, he sounds sleepy/lazy (obviously on purpose to me), which is possible in any accent or any language...

[esquire]

^ If you spoke to a stoner/slacker guy in Winnipeg, there's a chance he'd sound like the guy in that video.

There is something about the slightly more drawl-like US manner of speaking informally that lends itself to what that guy was doing.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by lio45

So you'd immediately know that lady on the phone couldn't be from the GTA born and bred just based on her accent? (Or from the Prairies, or BC?)

There's no right/wrong answer, I'm just curious.

She definitely sounds like southwestern Ontario to me. There's pretty much no way she could be from anywhere else in Canada.

To contrast, listen to the beauty pageant at 5:50. Those clipped vowels are pure western Canada.

These aren't huge, huge, massive differences, but they're still there.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ If you spoke to a stoner/slacker guy in Winnipeg, there's a chance he'd sound like the guy in that video.

There is something about the slightly more drawl-like US manner of speaking informally that lends itself to what that guy was doing.

No doubt, but unless he was intentionally trying to do so, his "out" would not sound American, it would sound Canadian.

[SignalHillHiker]

I imagine I say the Canadian "ou", or someone would've pointed it out to me now, but I can't really hear the difference. I certainly couldn't tell you who is from is the U.S. and who is from Ontario based on that - only if the U.S. one is identifiable for reasons other than "ou".

I can just tell it's a mainland, Canadian accent sometimes when the "o" is so drawn out and every syllable sounds like a separate word with a period in between. "Downtown" is the worst - with both syllables equal in length, even. Instantly identifies a mainlander. As does "car". But not "ou".

[ciudad_del_norte]

I don't know what degree the raising is prevalent in Edmonton and Alberta, but I can immediately identify somebody from the eastern part of the country through "out" "about' or "house". I don't hear it in the speech of locals, but it may still be there relative to the states - its maybe just less intense than it seems to be farther east. I could hear it in the Thunder Bay video, although not as strongly as I've often heard from "the east."

I can't really hear the clipped vowels...but since I speak western canadian they probably just sound normal to me.

Atlantic giveaway for me is anything that rhymes with car ("kerr"). Pirates.